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regular-article-logo Saturday, 11 May 2024

Took step back, will move forward again: Minister on farm laws

The government is not dejected even though the laws had to be repealed: Centre

Our Bureau, Agencies New Delhi Published 25.12.21, 03:50 PM
Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar

Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar Twitter/@nstomar

The three farms laws, which were repealed by the Centre last month in the face of farmer protests against them, could be brought back in the future, Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar has hinted, according to ndtv.com.

Speaking at the inauguration of the agricultural industry exhibition, Agrovision, Maharashtra Nagpur, Narendra Singh Tomar on Friday said the government was not dejected even though the agriculture reform laws had to be repealed, ndtv.com added.

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"We brought the agriculture amendment laws. But some people did not like these laws, which, after 70 years after Independence, were a big reform under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership," the Agriculture Minister said.

"But the government is not disappointed... we moved a step back and we will move forward again because farmers are India's backbone," he said, as he pitched for private sector investment.

Two days before it scrapped the farm laws, the government issued a note on 'Objects and Reasons,' noted Ndtv.com.

Tomar and other Union ministers talked to the protesting farmers and held several meetings to work a way out as thousands of farmers mainly from poll-bound from Punjab and Uttar Pradesh camped on the Delhi borders since November last year.

According to the agitating farmers, who did not budge from their demands, the three farm laws would leave them at the mercy of large corporate firms even though the Centre tried to assure them.

The Union minister also said at the event the agriculture sector needs investment in a big way. Tomar said private investment flowed into other areas which created jobs and the contribution of these industries in the GDP rose.

"The agriculture sector, despite being so big, did not receive this kind of opportunity. Today this sector receives most of the investment through government programmes... Through government purchase (of farm produce), subsidy on fertilisers, seeds and pesticides and other policies," he was quoted by NDTV.com as saying.

He also said the current investment in the sector benefits the traders and not farmers. "You don't find warehouses and cold storages in villages… Hence prime minister Modi has announced infrastructure investment of Rs1 lakh crore as well as investment in allied sectors like animal husbandry, food processing, fisheries, herbal farming, altogether adding up to Rs1.5 lakh crore," he said.

"There is still a lack of private investment in the agriculture sector," Tomar added.

The Parliament last month passed The Farm Laws Repeal Bill, to repeal the three contentious agri laws against which farmers have been protesting for over a year.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of 40 farm unions, decided to suspend the over a year-long farmers' movement against three contentious farm laws and announced that farmers will go back home on December 11 from the protest sites on Delhi's borders.

The announcement came after the SKM, which is spearheading the movement, received a central government signed letter where it agreed to consider their pending demands, including withdrawal of cases against farmers and form a committee on minimum support price (MSP).

The repeal of the farm laws, however, didn't satisfy the Opposition. The Congress saw Modi’s abrupt decision to repeal the contentious farm laws as neither a moral awakening nor a remorseful retreat, insisting that the politician had finally capitulated to electoral compulsions.

Arguing that the spectre of defeat in the upcoming Assembly elections, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, had forced Modi to abandon the “pro-corporate” agriculture laws that he had so vigorously pursued through vicious propaganda and coercive tactics against the farmers, the Congress said the government should be punished for the “crime”.

Congress communications chief Randeep Surjewala said: “The anti-farmer conspiracy, the might of the crony capitalists and Modi’s conceit have been vanquished. The country will not forget that Modi rolled back his crime after the death of over 700 farmers, a sordid saga of torture and coercion and sinister plots to defame and demoralise.

The government's decision was also termed "very unfortunate" as this "political move" and would not help the BJP in the upcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, a key member of the Supreme Court-appointed panel on the contentious agri-laws had opined..

Shetkari Sanghatana President Anil J Ghanwat said the agitators had planned the protest till the upcoming assembly elections. The Centre did not succumb when the protest was at its peak and now it has gone down to their knees.

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